Tag: roses

This is another of my ‘mixed bag’ posts, with no particular theme. I’m also in the middle of writing a story for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers at the moment, so I’d better make this quick so I can get back to it and leave this evening for writing my book. Well, that’s the plan at the moment.

June is always such a glorious month in the UK (although many days this year have given me cause to doubt that!). Now that the spring flowers have died off, the summer blooms are opening and the garden is becoming more colourful by the day. The fruits on the trees are also beginning to swell and it looks as though we’ll have some bumper crops this year.

Roses are such beautiful flowers, although I know of a few people who are’t keen on them. Being from Lancashire (land of the red rose of the Wars of the Roses) red roses have always been a particular favourite. When I had our first child in 1973, my parents sent two dozen red roses to me in hospital. Nowadays, of course, flowers aren’t allowed on hospital wards. But I love roses of any colour and we have lots dotted around our garden. The rambler over the pergola, shown above, is not far from our back door, and the fantastic scent hits you as soon as you open the door.

For anyone interested in getting free books on Amazon, today is the first of my five free days for ‘Shadow of the Raven‘, Book One of my Viking trilogy. I decided to try all five days together this time, although I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing. I usually split the five days into two throughout the three-month period. Some people prefer to just have five separate days, which I have’t tried yet. Perhaps I’ll try that next time.

Next week June 18 – 22 (Thursday – Monday) the second book of my trilogy, Pit of Vipers, will also be free. This is the first time I’ve had this book on the Select programme, so I’ve yet to see how well that works. I can’t imagine anyone would want to read Book Two without having read Book One, although it does stand alone, according to the editor of the Self Publishing Review, who has now reviewed both of my books (both reviews are in my side bar).

I’m still toying with the idea of taking my books off the Amazon Select scheme so that I can put them with other online publishers as well, like Barnes and Noble. Amazon Select demands exclusivity, which has its pros and cons. I’ve heard so many arguments regarding the best thing to do, but I’m still unsure. If anyone has any sound advice to offer here, I would be very grateful to hear it.

I’m off to Wales next week for a break – just Husband and me. We’ve decided to stay in Chester, a lovely old town, convenient for travelling into Wales or North-West England. My brother and his wife and family still live in the north-west, and my aunt and uncle live in North Wales. We’ll be spending some of the week visiting people, but the rest of the time, we intend to head out to visit three of the castles along the North Wales coast – Conwy, Caernarfon and Beau Maris – so that I can do a couple of posts about them. The last of these is on the Island of Anglesey, so I’m not sure we’ll have time to get to that one. I also want to do a post about Roman Chester. They’ve now opened up an ampitheatre just ouside the town, which was still being excavated last time we visited some years ago. But my priority will be the castles – which I’ve visited several times before. Here’s a photo of Caernarfon Castle we took a few years ago. It’s an awesome place…